The effectiveness of alternative control technologies is of interest to designers of vehicles because of the potential for conflicts among the multiple tasks needed to manage the systems. Typically, operators of a vehicle, machine, or the like perform operations relating to the vehicle using their hands. The operators also use their other senses such as vision, hearing and touch, to enhance their operational abilities. In some instances, operators tend to be overwhelmed when too many senses are engaged simultaneously, and the operator unsuccessfully attempts to perform a particular operation. This is especially true for the control stations of unmanned air and ground vehicles due to the multiple tasks required to manage the system and operate multifunctional displays. Although many of these tasks are automated with an electronic associate in the form of embedded computer programs, there are times when the automation will defer to the human operator for evaluation and decision. In these cases the human operator has to both navigate the vehicle and operate the displays thereby placing a high load on the cognitive and manual functions.
Using alternative control technologies such as eye-pointing for vision-directed control of machines and vehicles has proven to be a viable alternative technology for display control in dedicated tasks. However, the effect of eye-pointing upon the performance of dual-tasks requiring shared attention to separate visual scenes, such as concurrent display operations and vehicle control, has not been extensively researched. Because of the multiple tasks needed to manage the system and operate the multifunctional displays, eye-pointing technology may serve as an alternative display control device during periods of high operator workload. However, even with eye-pointing technology, the current art inherently limits the display resolution size because of the need to use foveal vision for visual acuity and because of small, involuntary saccade-like eye jitters during fixation of eye gaze. The need for forced visual fixation causes visual tunneling reducing peripheral vision, potentially hazardous to operation and navigation. Finally, an operator's natural gaze may fall upon several controls successively resulting in difficulty in determining a control of interest.
Further control difficulties are incurred with the vision-directed control task as a dual-task shared with concurrent multiple tasks, because of the need to perform one task while monitoring the status of the other. Along with the additional visual attention load of switching attention between tasks, there is the cognitive loading of scheduling task activity along with the task recall and evaluation involved in monitoring, as well as the task focus and decision involved in further task execution.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for formatting task information in arrangements that best facilitate attention to the task for increased ease of task performance.